GODZILLA II: KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019) - Official Trailer

The latest instalment of the franchise, Godzilla: King of The Monsters, hit cinemas this week and it’s already on track to make a monstrous $79 million in its debut weekend.

It’s a history-making outing for the mythical beast, marking 65 years since audiences were first introduced to his rampaging, city-destroying ways.

In the decades since being created by Tokyo’s legendary Toho Studios in 1954, Godzilla has became something of antihero for our troubled times, turning up on big screens in more than 35 films to scare the pants off cinemagoers.

Scene from the movie Godzilla: King Of Monsters. Roadshow Pictures/Warner Brothers.Source:Supplied

However since its inception, social commentary has been an integral part of the brand’s DNA and the franchise has subtle, radical foundations unlike any other action or sci-fi series.

Basically, Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto has never tackled issues of gender equality. Keanu Reeve’s John Wick might be a dab hand at taking out swathes of bad guys (even while riding a horse) but confronting the devastating consequences of man’s impact on the natural world doesn’t really pop up.

Godzilla does what other big name offerings in the blockbuster genre don’t, which is engage with pressing social and political questions in between awe-inspiring monster fights.

To start with, there are the blockbuster’s feminist credentials, putting women characters front and centre. This time around Vera Farmiga and Millie Bobby Brown play a mother and daughter duo who have deeply personal reasons for getting up close and personal with the ‘kaiju’ (or monsters who after the 2014 Godzilla are now across the Earth).

Just don’t call them damsels in distress. Vera Farmiga, left, and Millie Bobby Brown in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Picture: Daniel McFadden/Warner Bros/APSource:AP

For the next 131 minutes, the complexities of family dynamics, sacrifice in the name of the greater good, and the corrosive nature of grief all play out against a backdrop of truly epic battles.

However, interestingly, unlike in other mega-budget Hollywood film, it’s women who are flying the fighter jets, taking aim at the monsters, and proving they are unparalleled at badassery. Farmiga plays a scientist as doesSally Hawkins.

Also setting Godzilla apart is that it passes the Bechdel Test, that is, the litmus test used to determine if a movie is sexist or not. (To get the thumbs up, there must be at least one scene, with two women who have a conversation that is not about a man.)

Says the film’s director, X-Men screenwriter Michael Dougherty: “If you go back and look at the Godzilla films, women who kick arse have been a strong part from the very beginning. I’m glad the rest of the world is catching up but I feel like there is a long history of kick arse women in horror and sci-fi.”

At the franchise’s heart is a warning about the hubris of humankind and our inherent propensity to stuff up our world. It’s a message that is as sadly relevant today as it was in the 50s when Godzilla was created and it looked like the A-bomb would kill us all.

Of the film’s abiding take away, Dougherty says: “It’s don’t f**k up the planet otherwise mother nature releases her 800 megatonne monsters. For me personally, this film is really about finding a symbiotic relationship between man and Godzilla slash nature. To me Godzilla has always been mother nature’s protector.

“If you make a Godzilla film without that [message], it’s not a Godzilla film, it’s just a giant monster [movie].”

At a time when political leaders the world over appear to be pushing climate change off the agenda, maybe the world needs Godzilla more than ever.